Members of the University and College Union (UCU) have voted in favour of industrial action which will see them refuse to mark essays, exams or dissertations.

During the boycott, set to begin on June 3, academics will also stop grading students’ projects and practical work.

The row centres on an initiative called ‘Raising the Bar’, which the union says will impose stressful targets, hold academics accountable for things outside their control and harm teaching.

Staff have admitted the action could threaten students’ graduation and their ability to progress to the next year of study.

Those who support the boycott have argued that action is necessary to protect the quality of both teaching and research at the university.

A final year English language student, who asked not to be named, said: “This is the worst time for anything like this to happen, I’m studying for my last exam and I don’t even know if it’s going to be marked.

“I’ve done all that work, and paid all that money, and what for?

“I understand why they’re doing it, I just think there must be a better way than this.”

The student was keen to stress that the planned action had the potential to have a major detrimental impact on final year students.

She said: “I feel like the reason they’ve done this now is to have such a massive impact, but they’re not taking it out on the people making the changes, instead they’re holding us to ransom, making it our problem, when we’re the ones who have turned up to lectures all year, we’re the ones paying £27,000 for our education.”

But not all students are opposed to the boycott.

One Geography undergraduate, who runs a Facebook page called “Newcastle University Students Against ‘Raising The Bar’” said that the changes which UCU are opposing would be to “the detriment of current teaching standards and the support staff give to students”.

They added: “A management team who would impose [these targets] on the staff and students without negotiation certainly does not represent us.

“It is critical that we support the strike to defend a democratically ran University for the sake of a supportive learning environment.”

In an effort to reassure worried students, UCU members sent a message to their pupils, apologising for the disruption and insisting that university management was responsible for any problems caused.

The note said: “We know that this action will cause disruption. We’re very sorry about this. None of our members comes to work wanting to take any kind of action that negatively impacts on students.

“The fact is that Newcastle University management could have resolved this dispute months ago.

“Their decision to allow this dispute to continue is damaging the quality of your education. We have tried to persuade them to resolve this dispute through negotiation and through our campaigning but they just won’t listen – a boycott of the marking process is the last resort.”

When asked about UCU objections to ‘Raising the Bar’ ahead of the ballot for industrial action, Professor Tony Stevenson, Newcastle’s acting vice-chancellor, said the university performance and development review has not changed since 2013, and that the targets the union object to are nothing new.

He claimed the only thing added by Raising the Bar is a set of benchmarks which act as guidance for staff and create a fairer system of staff assessment.

He said that the university was “surprised and disappointed” by the union’s push for a strike, which he said “will impact our students at the most critical time of their studies”, and emphasised that the university had made efforts to negotiate with UCU.